SHENZHEN-BASED Huawei Technologies has secured more than 50 commercial 5G contracts globally, 28 of which are with European countries, according to a release by the company Friday.

The company also sold 100 million phones worldwide in the first five months of the year, around 50 days faster than last year, said Chen Lifang, senior vice president, director and head of the company’s Government and Public Affairs Department, yesterday in Brussels, where the company is sponsoring a Europe-China Journalism Award administered by the Press Club Brussels Europe.

Since the U.S. Government added the company to its entity list, barring it from doing business with American firms, European customers have been supportive and the orders they have placed with Huawei are votes of trust in the company, according to Chen.

The firm’s smartphones are favored among consumers, as 10 million units of its P30 model were sold in just 85 days.

Huawei has long committed itself to spending more than 10 percent of its revenue on research and development, Chen said. It invested as much as US$15 billion on it last year, or 15 percent of its revenue, and its R&D spending over the next five years will exceed US$100 billion, she added.

(Han Ximin)